Charlize Theron: diapers, dogs, adoption, and some life lessons

Charlize Theron, on the "Snow White and the Huntsman" publicity trail, brings us today’s celebrity mom inferiority complex – but with some thoughts actually worth pondering on diapers, dogs, adoption, and life lessons.

By Stephanie Hanes, Correspondent / May 30, 2012

Charlize Theron, here in a scene from "Snow White and the Huntsman," is on the publicity trail. Today she brings us the latest mom inferiority complex. Talking dogs, adoption, and life lessons there are some thoughts worth pondering.

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Leave it to the celebrity moms to make one feel totally inadequate.

Stephanie Hanes

Correspondent

Stephanie Hanes is the lead writer for Modern Parenthood and a longtime Monitor correspondent. She lives in Andover, Mass. with her husband, Christopher, her daughter, Madeline Thuli, a South Africa Labrador retriever, Karoo, and an imperialist cat named Kipling.

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Just when I had gotten over the fact that I didn’t think of “Blue Ivy” as a name for my daughter (“How’d you miss that one?” my college roommate e-mailed back in January), and just after I had come to terms with the realization that I would never have my own Simpson-Sims-Spelling-style clothing line (apparently wearing the same sweatpants multiple days in a row does not a fashionista make), here comes Charlize Theron.

The South African actress and new mom has been making the press rounds to promote her new film, “Snow White and the Huntsman,” in which she plays Ravenna, the fairy tale’s wicked queen. And predictably, many of the questions have revolved around her infant son Jackson, whom she adopted in March.

Here are some of the tidbits we have learned:

Ms. Theron says being a new mom “just feels right.” No Mommy Wars-style identity crisis here. The peacefulness oozes out of her interviews.

“My mom said the most beautiful thing,” the actress recalled during a chat with Ellen DeGeneres. “I’m going to cry. She said ... ‘It took me nine months to fall in love with you when you were growing in my stomach.’ She’s like, ‘It took you two years to fall in love with this little baby.’ ... It really took two years of just waiting and then, one day, it’s finally there. It just feels exactly how it’s supposed to feel. I don’t know how to describe it. It just feels right.”

Meanwhile, she says her dogs – a rescue terrier mutt named Berkley and a pit bull rescue named Blue – took to Jackson right away.

“From the moment this baby came into our home, those two dogs have never been more in love,” she said. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever witnessed.”

Blue, apparently, even wakes up with Theron every time she needs to change or feed Jackson, and “whenever the baby would cry the pit would start crying ... he’ll do anything for that baby.”

(Hear that, Labrador retriever sneaking onto the couch downstairs? It’s not just about what the baby will toss you from the high chair.)

And, to top it off, Theron enjoys changing diapers.

“I love it!” she said on the Today show. “I’ve got to tell you, I’m available for other babies’ diapers to be changed ... I can do it in my sleep now. I’m so good.”

Awesome. I’ll be tweeting you my address, Charlize.

Now, if all of this isn’t enough to build a sense of mommy-not-worthiness, there's the interview Theron gave, along with "Snow White" co-star Kristen Stewart, to Interview Magazine.

In addition to waxing poetically about acting, the constructs of female characters in popular films, power and how women see themselves in the world, Theron had this to say about her atypical path toward motherhood:

“You can't really be too calculated about everything in life. I think I've gone through my life with the understanding that you've got to let go and you can't think that you're going to control your destiny. I think I made peace with that at a very young age because I went through an experience that taught me that as soon as you think that you know how your life is going to be, something in the universe will make you realize that you really are not that in control of it.”

And then, on the adoption:

“So then you go through the process, and it's tough. It's not the easiest process – and then again, I've never liked things too easy in life. But it emotionally knocks you out. It's a really difficult thing to experience, but I never once faltered and thought that I didn't want to go through with it. You kind of go through situations that don't work out, and then all of a sudden you have this baby in your hands and you forget about all of that. You forget about the last three years of your life. You just realize that everything unfolded exactly the way it was supposed to unfold.”

At least today’s celebrity mom inferiority complex comes with some thoughts worth pondering.